Ban premades from frontline, fix all issues

Basic competency would save FL.

olivia heres a challenge, go on crystal, play solo, do your commanders roleplayer stuff and see what happens.

Premades gotta go

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Basic competency would save FL.

---

Good luck getting to that state.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AristocraticCorgi

Admit it guys.

Pushing for solo queue will save FL.

Let's do it!

---

Everyone being solo will only make things more dull. No more protecting your teammates (not that everyone relies on this in the first place). Everyone racing to destroy the objectives. Everyone stacking on top of the highest ranking objective. 20% of the room accepting afkers on the team. Another part sending those that cares about winning frontlines to ranked CC.
If you happened to be a soloist that can easily pick up kills at that point you're just going to get your classes target nerfed until you are forced to rely on the team. That way, they don't have to die as fast.

Maybe I am overexaggerating things. However, between 5.2 and now there's hardly been any changes as to how everyone plays the game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mistress_Irika

Good luck getting to that state.

---

We be trying

What are these people wanting to ban groups in a frickin mmo ffs ?? Just git gud, and on top of that sniping premades has never been easier since 7.2...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Teno

What are these people wanting to ban groups in a frickin mmo ffs ?? Just git gud, and on top of that sniping premades has never been easier since 7.2...

---

I think what a lot of people dislike is the competitive advantage that having a premade offers. You can't really deny it.
Is it easier to disrupt even a good premade than before? Sure, but it's still more advantagious to have a group than not. I mostly play solo, and when on occasion I get a group it feels like playing on easy mode.
Sure I can disrupt a premade - but it's difficult to be the only one doing it if you are solo.

HOWEVER, saying all of that, I like that some people care enough about the mode that I like to actually group up. I think in long terms it makes the game quality higher as it forces people to also group or get better. Sadly not enough people do.

Casual players join once a blue moon, get stomped by premades, have a terrible time, don't want to keep playing it. There's no reason to get better at a game mode you don't enjoy upfront. Premades just encourage negative attitudes and low effort from most players who suffer them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Teno

What are these people wanting to ban groups in a frickin mmo ffs ?? Just git gud, and on top of that sniping premades has never been easier since 7.2...

---

Yeah not only an MMO, but a Final Fantasy MMO. You know, the series about a plucky group of people (party of four, in most cases) coming together to overcome impossible odds.

Especially with the damage scaling, you need to focus damage with other players to get anywhere.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TofuLove

HOWEVER, saying all of that, I like that some people care enough about the mode that I like to actually group up. I think in long terms it makes the game quality higher as it forces people to also group or get better. Sadly not enough people do.

---

But it doesn't, that's the problem we've been struggling with.

On NA/EU there is a significant group of players who are not going to get better because they have absolutely no reason to. And simply grouping up also doesn't solve anything given some players do that for vote-kick protection so they can goof off.

I do have some optimism that reporting lethargic players is having an impact, partly because a GM contacted me in game to chat about it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mawlzy

But it doesn't, that's the problem we've been struggling with.

On NA/EU there is a significant group of players who are not going to get better because they have absolutely no reason to. And simply grouping up also doesn't solve anything given some players do that for vote-kick protection so they can goof off.

I do have some optimism that reporting lethargic players is having an impact, partly because a GM contacted me in game to chat about it.

---

I assume people refuse to get better because it's socially acceptable by the community to trash on PvP. If it's no longer socially acceptable to throw matches, people will pull up their big boy pants and start trying to win immediately.

I wish we had NA GMs on EU sometimes. Imagine having an EU GM actually contacting you kek

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aravell

I assume people refuse to get better because it's socially acceptable by the community to trash on PvP. If it's no longer socially acceptable to throw matches, people will pull up their big boy pants and start trying to win immediately.

---

Hmmm. I'd suggest on NA there isn't the social cohesion that gives that kind of social pressure enough clout.

I imagine the best one might do is to compel those just there for the rewards to keep their snarky comments to themselves, find better hiding places, and develop more cunning ways of mooching their XP and rewards while still avoiding combat.

If someone has played a couple of dozen matches and they cannot inflict 100k damage, they're simply not trying IMO. The GMs can then issue a warning. Put in more effort over the next X games or serve a suspension.

This may seem antithetical to FFXIV, but in other modes such as raiding, the players do have agency to set a threshold for competency of their team-mates. In FL we don't; only the GMs have that power.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Exmo

Casual players join once a blue moon, get stomped by premades, have a terrible time, don't want to keep playing it. There's no reason to get better at a game mode you don't enjoy upfront. Premades just encourage negative attitudes and low effort from most players who suffer them.

---

Hm :) I suppose a lot of regulars would say that it wouldn't change anything - casuals would still get stomped because they don't recognise the movement patterns and bursts. However, I guess that would disingenuous as realistically it wouldn't be as frequent of an occurrence.

It comes down to how we view frontline - is it a competitive mode or casual mode? If it's casual then premade or not - doesn't matter because it's just for fun anyway, right?
This seems to be the direction SE takes it, as wins only have significance for achievements and nothing else really.

However, if it's for just fun and not competitive, then "stomping" shouldn't happen - right? Not being able to react to burst is not fun for casual players - and that's fair enough.
Which makes me think that the biggest issue is how many aoe and cc effects there are in the pvp right now - it's very punishing and very easy to gain kills.
This wasn't as much of a problem in shadowbringers pvp (as far as i can remember).

Battlehigh change of 7.2 kind of countered that, because it's much easier to recover battlehigh, but dying is still not very fun.

[edit]
Another thing to think about is catchup mechanics - LB gauge gain for 3rd place & nerf for 1st place. Is that not significant enough of a boost/nerf to equalise the games to counter stomping?

The single best thing they can do to mitigate the worst stomping that happens right now is put premades in their own matches.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Exmo

The single best thing they can do to mitigate the worst stomping that happens right now is put premades in their own matches.

---

That really isn't going to happen though, is it? There are only maybe 2-3 meta premades that see themselves as that at any given time, so it's just something that wouldn't pop outside qsync, which i suppose would be fine.

I think it's worth admitting this is a casual game mode.
How many "premades" are just friends, and how many are meta stacks that figured out that pressing buttons together is just way more efficient? I would imagine they are a minority, no?
It would seem to be an overcorrection to remove ability to queue into a casual mode with friends for majority of players. Especially as the problem is "stomping" and not the innate grouping up.

Surely, the best thing to do for a more competitive game mode that you guys so want is to have solo only ranked queue with it's own rewards, but keep the casual experience casual with grouping up.

p.s.
I would thrive in solo ranked queue environment, so personally I would be all for it. I just think it's disingenuous to say that premades are "the problem", when it's actually just current iteration of skills being so insanely burst focussed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TofuLove

That really isn't going to happen though, is it? There are only maybe 2-3 meta premades that see themselves as that at any given time, so it's just something that wouldn't pop outside qsync, which i suppose would be fine.

I think it's worth admitting this is a casual game mode.
How many "premades" are just friends, and how many are meta stacks that figured out that pressing buttons together is just way more efficient? I would imagine they are a minority, no?
It would seem to be an overcorrection to remove ability to queue into a casual mode with friends for majority of players. Especially as the problem is "stomping" and not the innate grouping up.

Surely, the best thing to do for a more competitive game mode that you guys so want is to have solo only ranked queue with it's own rewards, but keep the casual experience casual with grouping up.

p.s.
I would thrive in solo ranked queue environment, so personally I would be all for it. I just think it's disingenuous to say that premades are "the problem", when it's actually just current iteration of skills being so insanely burst focussed.

---

I'm not making a distinction of causal mode (solo players) vs competitive move (premades). Players who want to buddy up in a premade can still play casually if they wish, they will simply be doing so against other premades.

There's no easy way to identify toxic premades short of collecting battle+log metrics and flexibly searching for patterns. Easier to put all premades in the same bucket.

I disagree that the problem boils down to a current configuration of skills or a meta strategy. The problem is caused by the approach and mentality of some players. You can change the skills of jobs but those players will just find another strategy that allows them to enact their desire to suffocate other players. It's naive to think all we have to do is remove salted earth and those toxic premades will suddenly stop treating all other players outside their premade as NPCs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Exmo

I'm not making a distinction of causal mode (solo players) vs competitive move (premades). Players who want to buddy up in a premade can still play casually if they wish, they will simply be doing so against other premades.

There's no easy way to identify toxic premades short of collecting battle+log metrics and flexibly searching for patterns. Easier to put all premades in the same bucket.

I disagree that the problem boils down to a current configuration of skills or a meta strategy. The problem is caused by the approach and mentality of some players. You can change the skills of jobs but those players will just find another strategy that allows them to enact their desire to suffocate other players. It's naive to think all we have to do is remove salted earth and those toxic premades will suddenly stop treating all other players outside their premade as NPCs.

---

I think that competitive mode IS solo mode, surely? The whole point of removing premades as a suggestion is more balanced competition, no? And casual mode is actually the one that allows groups of whatever nature they want to play.

Also, I am not talking about JUST salted. I am talking about overall damage numbers within the game mode and how many aoe and cc skills are there. This is what role actions haven't resolved, but in fact made worse - there is a lot of dps, and our healthbars are only very small.

Most premades is now more or less easier to handle, its just for both teams to figure it out and gang on them, it workd every time and the winner will be either of the two teams ganging on the premade.

Here is the thing, Flank King does not work well if you find the trigger PC's and mark them, can easy dodge them so the DRK only pulls 1-2 unlucky playes in... if the other team is smart would just gang on the premade team from behind as PvP is designed to only go in one direction in this game and as soon as their DRK and main targets move to the rear pew pew pew.....

Remarkable enough it does not require alot of cordination to deal with them either... you just drag them out..... if other team comes from the side, just give them the space needed.

It is very nice feeling keeping their so called main players down, make sure you pick up the objectives at the side, as now it is far from all BH and multiple kills.

...
do people think murderblender lead by decent caller + enough people actually listening are "friends"?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Astralrisk

Removing Pre-mades doesn't fix anything with balancing, it just makes the game worse when you can't play with your friends.

---

Dude go play other PVP games with good matchmaking. All this crying about "friends" is a pocket sand for any square enix person reading english forums.

Premades of multiple groups are bad vs randoms. Fix matchmaking by forcing groups vs groups first.

Nobody cares that you want to farm 100 wins for some trash glam or level 25 battle pass. Maybe people like you do RMT for battle pass leveling, that's why you are crying against fair mm?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Burmecia

...
do people think murderblender lead by decent caller + enough people actually listening are "friends"?

---

I've frequently done this as a solo caller. You literally don't need a premade to "stomp", but just enough people following up pulls. Sure that doesn't happen every time if you don't have a premade, but enough times to make me think that the whole "ban premades" is funny. It literally wouldn't impact me, but will not resolve the issue that people are talking about.

Hypothetical question. At what point should a premade be banned?
2 people? 3 people? 4 people? Removing premades entirely will actually piss off a lot of casual players, who frankly don't care about frontline at all, and just doing roulette with friends. What roulette is there where you can't queue as a group?
I get it that it's to help balancing, but balancing in a casual mode with bad rewards doesn't matter. Because any participation is rewarded equally, the majority of players don't actually care about performance.

If you want a hardcore mode, with only solo performance, it needs additional rewards, and actual matchmaking - because I don't think people would queue for it as much otherwise. "Premade only" mode will be dead on arrival.

Its not hardcore if we are sick of gettin literally murdered by just few premades. Premade should not work with rouletts, even if that means i cant play with FC mates or my wife...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TofuLove

If you want a hardcore mode, with only solo performance, it needs additional rewards, and actual matchmaking - because I don't think people would queue for it as much otherwise. "Premade only" mode will be dead on arrival.

---

Please no more rewards. They simply attract people who don't want to be there.

Matchmaking is the key.

The situation on Aether is deteriorating to the pre-7.1 situation. The individual stats for members of semi-statics are now in the 5/0/80 realm. They haven't reached the 10/0/115 we saw previously, but I imagine they are on their way.

As before, my personal issue is that playing with such a premade is tedious, whereas playing against one at least offers the prospect of a hard-fought upset. But with a significant fraction of all teams just being there for the rewards, we've drifted back into monotonous shooting fish in a barrel territory.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuroka

Its not hardcore if we are sick of gettin literally murdered by just few premades. Premade should not work with rouletts, even if that means i cant play with FC mates or my wife...

---

Everyone plays the game, everyone gets rewarded - this is the current system. Achievements are the only outlier, but they almost don't matter because of how few of them are there and how relatively easy they are to get - just play more. Frontline is a super casual mode that rewards breathing. Just because you got stomped, doesn't mean you didn't get rewarded. Somebody needs to win in order for the game to end - and I don't know how much solo gameplay would solve "getting literally murdered" without getting into reviewing the mechanics of getting murdered - AOE, CC skill stacking etc. It might happen less, but it will still happen.

IMHO - ANY barrier of entry into frontline will damage how much it pops. And asking for a mode to be only solo, or only premades is a barrier of entry.
If you want premades & good players to be split up and balanced between the teams - why not go one step further and recognise that you are pushing for balanced games with good players on all sides? Is that what you want? This is fine, but... will these players want to play at all?

My bias - I don't know how much casual roulette players care about winning or even know how to play. At the moment the worst performers don't at all. So I think that by banning premades will put a lot of players off: casuals and regular players, and I think the games would quickly become worse. Because let's face it - premades want to win, they don't want to play with people who don't know how to. I think the only counter to that would be to push for a truly hardcore solo mode that would incentivise winning and have good matchmaking. You might even get "balanced" premade free games, where lethargic players would get kicked and games would be good. Nirvana reached.

You will still get literally murdered if you are bad though, but that's just pvp.

Emphasis/bolding mine:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TofuLove

Because let's face it - premades want to win, they don't want to play with people who don't know how to.

---

I've been in Frontline matches with an obvious pre-made, and instead of making an effort to teach everyone else "some basic competency," all that pre-made did was fill up the chat log with useless macro spam faster than anyone could actually type while still playing the game, and thus taught nothing to anyone who wasn't already in their pre-made or Discord or whatever.

This stands in stark contrast to being the random PF fill or two for some FC or static prog'ing a fight, where someone in the FC/static has the courtesy to summarize what's being said in the Discord that you haven't been invited to.

Id be all up for no rewards on 2-3rd place or a lot lower ones. but there are some mechanics that finally need change. Like today we lost our match due flames feeding on gridania while we dealt with both, gettin so much battle high we had no chance later on. Actually it was close, we won almost ever fight but had no way to win the battle.

The very least i wished for 1 vs. 1 like with CC...

I might not be top tier, but you see me use my heal, kill stuff and do damage, unlike some where you literally see 90k damage or stuff like that. CC is the worst there where sometimes you literally win in like one minute lol ...you just see the lazy players way better there...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

Emphasis/bolding mine:



I've been in Frontline matches with an obvious pre-made, and instead of making an effort to teach everyone else "some basic competency," all that pre-made did was fill up the chat log with useless macro spam faster than anyone could actually type while still playing the game, and thus taught nothing to anyone who wasn't already in their pre-made or Discord or whatever.

This stands in stark contrast to being the random PF fill or two for some FC or static prog'ing a fight, where someone in the FC/static has the courtesy to summarize what's being said in the Discord that you haven't been invited to.

---

What? Do they need to spell out and justify every decision that they make? Are people unable to gather information and analyze why a commander made a decision after if not during a game? Is there no learning while experiencing the process?

I mean, I guess that many don’t bother trying to make sense of what’s going on, but there is nothing a pre-made or any teacher for that matter could do about that.

For those that do want to learn. They’ll find a plethora of public discords, guides, and streamers who want to help.

Just a closing thought, aren’t macros and waymarkers in chat “summarizing what’s being said in discord?”

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

What? Do they need to spell out and justify every decision that they make? Are people unable to gather information and analyze why a commander made a decision after if not during a game? Is there no learning while experiencing the process?

I mean, I guess that many don’t bother trying to make sense of what’s going on, but there is nothing a pre-made or any teacher for that matter could do about that.

For those that do want to learn. They’ll find a plethora of public discords, guides, and streamers who want to help.

Just a closing thought, aren’t macros and waymarkers in chat “summarizing what’s being said in discord?”

---

I wonder if video guides on YT would help. It's the default for PvE, maybe it'd produce some crossover.

Idk If banning premade solves any problem. If l see a dk putting a marker on himself and spamming comms, l would switch to whm. Very easy to follow up with the salted Earth and l get to max battle high in no time. I say just suck it up, or learn to dreamwalk, So You get the roulette bonus and get out of there before you know it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Just a closing thought, aren’t macros and waymarkers in chat “summarizing what’s being said in discord?”

---

Thanks Olivia, couldn't have summarised it better.
I think macros are relatively self explanatory, and are the only communication needed (and sometimes if the players are good enough - not needed at all). Any decision making and explanations are difficult to sum up during the game because of how on the fly some decisions are, and how quickly you must react to things. Also, the match isn't the time for debate on what to do, you can message the shot caller after if you want to debate - but during the game it's only going to have a negative effect.

Anecdotally from my experience to "teach": it took me over half a year spamming every shatter game for people NOT to jump down the enemy cliff, without a huge effect. Roulette players in EU still do it sometimes, and it's been some time since shatter got reworked. Those that want to learn - will find all the resources. There are plenty of videos, written guides etc available on discords and youtube. Feel free to come to Revival discord and ask things in the Frontline section - there are a lot of knowledgeable people who will help if you have questions on mechanics of any job, or detailed mechanics of any map.

Those that do want to learn are already a minority - and probably fall in the top 10% of good players on any server. Hell, if you are here - you probably care more about frontline than 99% of the server population. The problem is that there is no incentive to get better at the mode - why try, when rewards are good no matter your performance?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TofuLove

Thanks Olivia, couldn't have summarised it better.
I think macros are relatively self explanatory, and are the only communication needed (and sometimes if the players are good enough - not needed at all). Any decision making and explanations are difficult to sum up during the game because of how on the fly some decisions are, and how quickly you must react to things. Also, the match isn't the time for debate on what to do, you can message the shot caller after if you want to debate - but during the game it's only going to have a negative effect.

Anecdotally from my experience to "teach": it took me over half a year spamming every shatter game for people NOT to jump down the enemy cliff, without a huge effect. Roulette players in EU still do it sometimes, and it's been some time since shatter got reworked. Those that want to learn - will find all the resources. There are plenty of videos, written guides etc available on discords and youtube. Feel free to come to Revival discord and ask things in the Frontline section - there are a lot of knowledgeable people who will help if you have questions on mechanics of any job, or detailed mechanics of any map.

Those that do want to learn are already a minority - and probably fall in the top 10% of good players on any server. Hell, if you are here - you probably care more about frontline than 99% of the server population. The problem is that there is no incentive to get better at the mode - why try, when rewards are good no matter your performance?

---

Have you cleaned up that channel yet? Last time I was there it was used for general chat, memes, glam shots, and being rude to players not in the clique.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Have you cleaned up that channel yet? Last time I was there it was used for general chat, memes, glam shots, and being rude to players not in the clique.

---

I am not a mod/staff, but it still has a good dose of memes and general chat - it's a bit of a community, but if there is a genuine question - people usually help.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TofuLove

I am not a mod/staff, but it still has a good dose of memes and general chat - it's a bit of a community, but if there is a genuine question - people usually help.

---

Having modded a smaller Discord (~6k members) I found the best way to keep people on topic was to have a general-chat channel and delete the fluff from the actual content channels.

The issue is that the extant "community" tends to appear closed to new server members when key channels are used for in-jokes and off-topic conversations.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Have you cleaned up that channel yet? Last time I was there it was used for general chat, memes, glam shots, and being rude to players not in the clique.

---

I keep my own pretty clean, but we’re also basically ded.

Revival is big, but if I call the mods or submit a ticket they’re usually pretty quick

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

I keep my own pretty clean, but we’re also basically ded.

Revival is big, but if I call the mods or submit a ticket they’re usually pretty quick

---

Can't imagine wading back into it. I get irritable in low signal-to-noise environments. No doubt the LFG channel is useful for those who prefer that playstyle.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuroka

Its not hardcore if we are sick of gettin literally murdered by just few premades. Premade should not work with rouletts, even if that means i cant play with FC mates or my wife...

---

Go play another game, this one is for playing with people.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Teno

Go play another game, this one is for playing with people.

---

There's no bots in FL, you always pay with people and almost nobody's asking for otherwise. Did you misread the thread?

Kind of hope they will one day put in a solo queue like they do for crystal conflict, and don't think the queue time is bad since duty finder has a large pool to find people from each server, well except dead at night, and group or premade wouldn't have a bad queue timer unless like again dead of night on NA side for competitive plays.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Teno

Go play another game, this one is for playing with people.

---

One might argue playing with 71 other people is rather too many.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Have you cleaned up that channel yet? Last time I was there it was used for general chat, memes, glam shots, and being rude to players not in the clique.

---

It seems fine when I go in there, no being rude to players. The general chat and memes still exist, but I wouldn't say it floods the channel. There's plenty of talk about maps, scoreboards, strategy with different jobs, and assisting players when they have questions that goes on as well. I could not say if the signal-to-noise ratio meets your standards, that probably varies from person to person; it's not a hyper-focused channel strictly cultivated to be about its topic, like you might see with the AskHistorians subreddit, and probably never will be.